


Always Be A Family

by TeyrianTimelord



Category: Jurassic World (2015)
Genre: Alcoholism, Anxiety Attacks, Divorce, F/M, PTSD, Smoking, Trauma Recovery, everyone has problems, new raptors pack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-21
Updated: 2015-07-21
Packaged: 2018-04-10 12:17:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4391567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeyrianTimelord/pseuds/TeyrianTimelord
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Owen is stressed. Mind-bendingly, unfairly stressed.</p><p>Blue's mental health is deteriorating, Barry wants a raise to pay his child support, Recker still hasn't recovered from the raptor attack, Claire refuses to hire a wedding planner, and -oh, yeah!- he's getting married in two weeks.</p><p>It feels like the weight of the world is crushing his shoulders, but thankfully the Jurassic World family looks out for one another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always Be A Family

**Author's Note:**

> Here's one more Jurassic World fic before I take a break for a while. I am, after all, solely at the mercy of my muses, and right now they are refusing to give me any new ideas. However, I WILL write any prompts if you have something you are dying to read ;-) Feel free to leave them in the comments or my Tumblr askbox.
> 
> Special shout-outs to everyone who has contributed feedback through this adventure! I was having lots of self doubt about these fics, but you wonderful people kept me inspired and motivated. Kudos and my many thanks!
> 
> As always, please leave a comment if you feel even the slightest inkling of an inclination. Tell me what you liked, what you disliked, what you want to see more of, and all that jazz. Your words fuel mine =) Enjoy!

Smell is often credited with being the sense that can trigger the most vivid emotional memories. Multiple psychological studies had supposedly proven how scent far surpassed any of the other four receptors when it came to letting the brain relive even the most distant recollections, pleasant and painful alike. It was one of the few things Owen remembered being told by the grief counselor his parents forced him to visit when he was nine after his grandmother died. She lived with them in their two bedroom house for the last three years of her life, and his mother had been worried that Owen’s first brush with death might be too much for him to handle without professional help. 26 years later, he still didn’t have the heart to tell her that the only question he had asked of that strange old man with the glasses and notepad was why do I only feel sad about grandma when I smell her gross perfume?

Looking back on it, Owen felt like the world’s biggest dumbass for not realizing sooner that this effect might not be exclusive to humans.

The raptor research team had never seen Blue in such a state before. Even as a hatchling, she was always the most intelligent and mature of her sisters. Delta could chew an entire sofa to shreds if she was in a mood, Echo took out her rage on her siblings, and Charlie’s temper tantrums put any three year old to shame, however, Blue was more of a silent brooder. The worst she would ever do was go off to pout alone in a corner of her pen. But now it was as if she had been possessed by all of her deceased sisters’ reactive qualities at once. Owen, Barry, and Recker looked down from the paddock catwalk to see her tearing ass around her pen, screeching, howling, and screaming so loudly and fiercely that he swore Claire must have been able to hear her all the way from the control room on the other side of Isla Nublar. Her claws were bloodied from fierce clawing at the concrete walls, which were covered almost entirely in deep white grooves occasionally smeared with crimson. Half the foliage in the enclosure had been shredded or uprooted, but behind those that were still standing, Kilo, Juliett, and India were huddling in whatever brush they could find. Even the spunky and spritely young raptors who loved to challenge Blue’s authority at every turn understood hiding was their best chance for survival. They all knew she wouldn’t hesitate to rip out their throats.

Owen shuttered as she let out an ear-rupturing shriek. How could I be so fucking stupid?!

“What the hell is her problem?” Recker asked, digging her fingers into her ears.

“It’s my fault,” he answered hoarsely. “This is the shirt I wore when… when shit got bad. I put it on this morning without thinking.”

He knew he should have thrown the faded blue button-up away, but the same reason his beta was losing her mind was the reason he couldn’t bring himself to let it go. Even though he had washed that damn shirt a hundred times, it still smelled like blood and sweat and gasoline and fear and love and his girls. Owen had been deliberately keeping it in the back of his closet for those nights when nothing else was enough to keep the visions of his pack’s death from plaguing his mind. What the fuck had he been thinking actually wearing it to work?! Blue must have caught a whiff the moment he stepped into range.

“She has to either calm down or be isolated. I’m worried for the sisters’ safety,” Barry warned over Blue’s continued caterwauling.

Great fucking job, jackass, Owen growled silently to himself as he unzipped his vest and started unbuttoning his shirt. The last thing he needed was for her to go AWOL the second he stepped into the pen. He quickly tossed the garment Recker and sprinted his way down the stairs to the door of the enclosure, his bare chest already sweating under the intensity of direct sunlight. He needed to get into the paddock, but one wrong move and he could easily end up as Blue’s afternoon snack. However, even when he raised the bars that separated him from the screaming velociraptor, her behavior didn’t change in the slightest to acknowledge his existence. She still bolted from one wall to another, howling and desperately raking her claws along the concrete. Owen bit his lip. Up close he could see just how much damage she was doing to her hands, blood dripping down her arms from where the claws had been ground and split. No father could stand seeing their child in pain, and he was no exception. If Blue didn’t mellow out and get to a vet soon, her claws would be done for. He took a deep breath and a few steps into the paddock.

“Eyes on me,” he ordered sternly but tenderly, causing her to finally pause and glance his direction.

Owen swallowed hard when they locked gazes. Blue was his beta, his friend, his baby, hell, his life’s purpose even. She had killed good and innocent people, seen them as prey and ripped their limbs apart, but she also saved the lives of many who did not deserve to die. His lot on that spread was debatable, but she had saved him nonetheless. She couldn’t kill him for the same reason he couldn’t shoot her. It was as if they had given each other pieces of their own souls, and looking into her eyes now he could see the reflection of her broken heart and feel it in his chest. She was reliving all the agony of watching her sisters die horrible flaming deaths, fighting the same rage that burned her up enough to fight a monster five times her size, and it was tearing her apart. And it was his fucking fault for wearing that fucking shirt. He wished he could shrink her back down to her hatchling size of a housecat and just hold her in his arms and sing lullabies like he did when she and her sisters were still small enough to live in his trailer. He wanted to take all her pain away and see her be young and happy again. But his life would have taken a very different path if such wishes were granted.

“Easy, Blue. That’s a good girl,” he crooned as he slowly approached her with an outstretched hand. “That’s it. Easy. Easy, girl.”

She still fidgeted and growled with frustration, but did not lash out as he eased closer. With a slow deliberateness, Owen cautiously sidestepped across the open paddock, Blue following him curiously. He prayed she kept her cool long enough for him to lead her to the secluded side enclosure where the raptors were kept for examinations and quarantines, and thanked God when they finally made it. Usually she would look indignant or betrayed whenever she was led to the side paddock, but not this time. Instead she looked… deescalated, as if Owen’s presence was enough for her to relegate from rage to sorrow. A piece of his heart shattered when rather than growl or shriek or pace, she simply tucked her knees and dropped to the ground, head resting against the bars as if to sleep but eyes wide open. I’m sorry, Blue. I’m so, so sorry I did this to you. I’m sorry I let any of this happen.

He shared one more mournful glance with her before slipping out the backdoor of the enclosure. His hopes of having a moment alone to take a few deep breaths and recover, however, were shattered as Barry appeared from around the corner, a clipboard in one hand and open envelope in the other.

“Have the baby girls come out of hiding?” Owen asked, trying to hide his distress.

“Back to playing like the children they are,” he answered in his usual tone. However, his face quickly sobered up. “Mon ami, I hate to bring this up, but I have a problem I would like to discuss with you.”

Owen sighed. Just what he needed. As if dealing with a neurotic raptor wasn’t enough for his nerves.

“Alright, shoot.”

But instead of speaking, Barry simply handed over the envelope and crumpled letter inside. It had a Toulouse address on the return label, and Owen felt his stomach drop. He didn’t need to read the document but scanned over it anyway. His French was practically nonexistent, but what little was retained from his three years of high school classes gave him enough to recognize words like ‘children,’ ‘money,’ and ‘immediately.’ Part of what made Barry such an amazing employee was the amount of focus he put into his work. He had all of Owen’s enthusiasm for velociraptors and Claire’s professional tenacity for success. Personal history rarely came up, but especially after getting back in touch with his friends from the Navy, Owen knew how messy divorces could be. Messy and expensive.

“Manon is sending the kids to private school next year, and it threatening to petition for full custody if I do not pay for half the tuition. I’m sorry to put you in this situation right before your wedding, but if Masrani can’t give me a raise, I will have to find other work. You understand?”

Oh yeah, and then there was that little getting married detail. As if he didn’t have Claire reminding him every waking second they spent together that there was still a hundred hours’ worth of work they still needed to put into the damn thing. He loved her more than anyone else in the world, but Jesus Christ it was as if bridezilla had carried off the woman of his dreams and replaced her with a miraculously even more overworked, more controlling replica. It took all of Owen’s self-control not to scream at the top of his lungs at Barry. 24 hours. Could he please go just 24 hours without someone dumping the weight of the world on him? Was that really too much to ask?!

But he kept his mouth shut. He knew none of it was Barry’s fault; he was just trying to do what was best for his kids, and Owen was the one who fucked up with Blue and couldn’t keep his nerves in check over the wedding. As if on cue, he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Four texts from Claire, all concerning cake. For the love of God, honey…

“I’ll see what I can do,” he promised after taking another deep breath to center himself.

Mosquitos were settling on his back the more he sweated. If he didn’t get his shirt back from Recker soon, he’d spend the whole next week begging Claire to smother him in calamine lotion instead of placating her ravenous needs for his attention to her endless to-do list. Granted, the calamine lotion was definitely the more pleasant option of the two, but he truly wanted her to be happy, and if happy meant spending four hours picking out cake frosting, that’s what he would do (all the while doing his damnedest to not throw himself out a window). He handed the paperwork back to Barry with a nod and made his way back around the raptor paddock to the main entrance. Research and training for the raptors was the best balm for his rapidly deteriorating nerves; the sooner he could get back to it the better.

“Recker! You got my shirt?” he called from around the last turn. “It’s Juliett’s turn for scent training and I need you to-“

It was practically a guarantee that at 2:30 he could find Recker doing the basic daily observation paperwork on the juveniles. While most of Owen’s Navy habits had deteriorated after moving to Isla Nublar permanently, she was still as militant and pinpoint scheduled as ever. She always told people it was just a habit from the way she had been raised between her mother being ex-Israeli Air Force and father a former Seal, but he knew that deep down structure and command put her at ease, and that was the real key to her success in the military. She thrived under pressure and rigidity, which is exactly why he expected to see her pacing the catwalk with her clipboard and dog whistle, not curled up on the ground, hands shaking too much to even light the cigarette clamped between her lips. While both her quavering hands fumbled to ignite a disposable lighter, her left eyebrow twitched, causing the scar above her synthetic eye to dance, and her bottom lip trembled as she jerkily rocked herself back and forth, strange humming and mumbling noises coming from her closed mouth. Despite his yelling and noisy footsteps, she still didn’t even seem to notice him at all.

Owen’s heart skipped a beat. He knew a PTSD reaction when he saw it, and choked at the bitter taste of irony. After all those countless nights over the years of her handling and calming him down from anxiety attacks and now he had to return the favor. He immediately dropped to his knees and gently took both her lighter and cigarette. She let out a pathetic whine, but kept on rocking and shaking regardless. He put his hands on either side of her face and forced her to meet his gaze.

“Hey! Eyes on me, girly. I need you to focus on me,” he ordered. “Focus, Steph. Come back to me.”

Though her prosthetic was as lifeless as usual, her right eye was raging wildly, not so different from Blue’s. But instead of despair, it was filled with terror, flitting this way and that as if looking for an attacker that was bound to jump her any second. Even in the blazing heat he could feel her whole body shuttering under his touch. She was a small woman, but on the average day it was almost impossible to tell. Recker carried herself with all the confidence and authority that made her look larger than life, but now she looked like little more than a frightened child and it made Owen choke. It was supposed to be the other way around. She wasn’t supposed to be like this.

“Stephanie Avigayil Recker, come back, do you hear me? Come back!” he commanded more sternly this time.

Thankfully it was enough to grab her attention, but to his dismay, that wasn’t much of an improvement.

“She’s coming,” Steph rasped between what sounded like repressed sobs, suddenly clutching Owen’s arm in a death grip as her breathing got faster and shallower. “She’s coming and she’s going to kill me, please Owen, you have to help me, please don’t let her kill me, please, please, I don’t want to die, everything hurts!”

“Shhhh... It’s okay. You’re okay, Steph. Kilo is on the other side of that wall, she can’t hurt you. I won’t let her,” he assured softly and stroked his thumb over the crest of her cheekbone to catch a loose tear.

All things considered, it was a goddamned miracle Recker had gone as long as she did without a breakdown. After Kilo attacked her in the last bad storm of the monsoon season, she had spent two weeks in the hospital and three months in physical therapy before Claire and the doctors cleared her to come back to work. Most of the staff were concerned that it would not be safe to have a war veteran back to training the same animal that cost her an eye, but Owen had faith in her. Not misplaced faith, he still believed, just too much. The first three weeks back had been all smooth sailing, without an incident from either Steph or Kilo, but it was only a matter of time, even if he hated to admit it. Even if it hurt more than anything to see his oldest friend in so much pain. Just like Blue. I should have been able to help her too. Can I do anything right for anyone?

“You breathe on my count, understand?” he said, borrowing the same words she used when an anxiety attack cut off his lungs. “One. Two. One. Two.”

At first he was afraid that she couldn’t even hear him, continuing to shiver and gasp and whimper, but after a few of the longest minutes Owen could remember, her muscles finally relaxed enough that she let go on his arm and slumped against his chest. He gingerly wrapped his arms around her and could feel the deliberate rise and fall in her back as (he suspected) she forced herself to breathe more deeply. He lost track of how long they stayed curled up together on the ground, Steph laboring to regulation while Owen simply made sure she was safe and sound. That much he could do, at least, if nothing else. After what must have been at least an hour, she took a long, deep breath and sat back up, wiping away some sweat and tears with the sleeve of her shirt.

“I don’t think your current fiancée would be overly thrilled to see you holding your ex-fiancée while shirtless,” she said with a touch of her usual dry humor back again as she shakily rose to her feet and reached into her back pocket for another cigarette.

“Then maybe you should give my shirt back,” he countered, doing his best to hide how uncomfortable it still was to see her eyes so red. “And don’t you know those things will kill you?”

She scoffed and lit the end.

“What won’t?”

She took a deep inhale and released a breath of smoke that surrounded her head like a grey halo. Her tobacco habit had degenerated significantly since being back on the job, but Owen had no room to object when it came to self-destructive coping mechanisms. At least it was nearly a pack a day, not nearly a bottle of Jack a night. It was as if the two of them were cursed to never be sane or insane together, but rather one watch the other fall apart and help put the pieces back together only to then break themselves. It wasn’t healthy or romantic, but intimate nonetheless. Even if they couldn’t be a couple, something told him they would always need each other when things went wrong in life.

After a few moments of smoke filled silence, Recker tossed Owen his shirt from an inner pocket of her satchel.

“Claire’s been texting me. Apparently in the midst of a cake crisis, you aren’t picking up your phone,” she said scoldingly but with a hint of amusement.

He let out a groan and tried to hold on to his affirmation to meet Claire’s every demand.

“Then looks like I’m going south. Barry’s in charge. Try not to get lung cancer while I’m gone, girly.”

Steph blew a cloud his direction, but added a smile at the end too. He quickly threw his shirt back on and dug his motorcycle keys out of a pocket. The 20 minute drive back to Claire’s apartment on the south end of the island would finally give him a chance to be alone and clear his head. Claire, Blue, Steph, and Barry were the only reasons he was alive, both metaphorically and literally, but every so often he desperately needed his own space away from everyone else’s problems, no matter how much he loved his friends. Convolution made his head spin. A part of him wished he could go back to the old days, when it was just him and Barry working for InGen, training Blue, Charlie, Delta, and Echo; the six of them secluded in their own little corner of the world with nothing to worry about save for limiting raptor-based casualties and what movies to watch after the work day. But on the dirt road through Jurassic World, at least a sliver of Owen’s longing for the past was satisfied. The rolling hills and jutted peaks scattered with grazing herbivores made it possible for him to almost pretend that everything was as it used to be. Simple. Uncomplicated. He relished in the wind stinging his face, and the peace it brought.

Unfortunately, the twenty minutes went by all too quickly, and before he knew it, Owen was making his way through the sea of tourists toward the wing of the hotel resort Masrani had converted into housing accommodations for fulltime staff. Claire, of course, had been given the luxury penthouse suite. He barely made it out of the elevator on her floor when she jumped on him like a predator setting an ambush, her face nearly as red as her hair.

“You couldn’t have answered your phone once in the last two hours? Honestly, Owen, I’m not asking for the moon here! Is participating in the planning of our wedding too much responsibility for you?” she shouted, her emotions obviously overruling her judgement, though he knew she had a right to be angry.

“I know, honey, I’m sorry,” he said sincerely, taking both her hands in his own. “It’s been one hell of a rough day. But I’m all yours for the next two weeks, I promise.”

Despite her frazzled appearance and flushed face, Claire’s eyes softened and she gave his hands a gentle squeeze.

“Barry and Recker called to explain. I shouldn’t have snapped at you; it’s just a lot of stress and-“

Before she could say anything else, he cut her off with a light kiss and held her there for a few moments, feeling her tension melt away and stealing some of his as it went. She wrapped her arms up around his neck and Owen was reminded of why he had chosen her to spend the rest of his life with. All that fire, all that drive she had, and yet still had the softness to love and to tame. There was none of the toxicity or codependence that killed his would-be marriage with Steph; no competition like with the other men in her life, nothing to win, and nothing to prove. There was balance.

“I’ve got an idea,” she said when they finally parted, and he could see the newly found serenity in her eyes. “Let’s cancel everything for the rest of the day, have a nice early dinner with Recker and Barry, and then stay in for the rest of the night.”

Owen grinned and pulled her in close by the hips.

“I like the sound of ‘stay in,’” he teased playfully, but deep down it was something more.

The stress would never end. He and Steph might never get over their trauma. Barry might never make peace with Manon. Claire might always find something to consume her life. Blue might never stop feeling lonely. But the one thing that would never change is that they would always be a family, and never stop taking care of each other. He would drag Steph to therapy kicking and screaming if her had to, kiss up to whatever sponsors necessary to get Barry the salary he deserved, attend to any whim Claire asked of him, and not let a day go by without reminding Blue that he will never let anything happen to her again. The thought that brought him the most peaceful reassurance was knowing any of them would do the same. They were his family, and he knew that after taking a breather, there was nothing Owen couldn’t get through without them.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to read the other two stories introducing Jurassic World's reopening and explaining the raptor attack, you can read Only If For the Night (http://archiveofourown.org/works/4160361) and All Blue (http://archiveofourown.org/works/4195986), which I am so glad to report has broken 100 kudos!
> 
> Again, this is the last Jurassic World fic I'll be writing on my own for a while, but I will be taking requests/prompts both with or without Steph and the new raptor pack.
> 
> Thanks for making this an amazing writing experience!


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